glass update

Snappy title, eh?  There's no glass class this week as it's half term. Well actually, it isn't, the teacher got the date wrong but decided to go with it anyway!  I made a fair bit of progress last week, want to see?

So this is where I was:

 And this is where I got to by the end of class last week: 

The entire main panel is done!  Now I just have to put in the fused square (bottom right), add the strips, then there's just the border to do which does involve cutting half circles for the nuggets.  When that's all leaded, I have to solder it all, then cement it.  Looking at this picture I've just remembered that I'd planned to paint the clear squares in the blue strip, above the rainbowy border... oh dear!

Number 17 was a right pain in the you-know-what.  I'd cut him out of blue, but cut him too small (yes, he's a man because he was a pain), I couldn't find any more of that blue glass so I cut one out of yellow.   Then I took pout pieces 25 and 20 and they are both yellow too!  I managed to find a raggedy bit of glass, also marked with number 17 that I could use. 

I really wish these pictures were better, it's so hard to see the colourfulness (is that a word??) of the strip in the middle of the stem... I have high hopes of getting decent pictures one day! 

Beading a Fringe

Remember the red scarf which I couldn't photograph properly?  Well here it is again, still not the correct colour!  So why am I showing you again?  Because I've added a beaded fringe to it.

I was going to use a pattern from The Beaded Edge 2 - a truly beautiful book with gorgeous crocheted and beaded edgings that I got for my birthday.  Alas, it may have to stay a gorgeous book as I could not make head nor tale of the instructions.  Instead I used a pattern from Simple Glass Beading by Dorothy Wood.

As this is part of my craft book challenge, I can also link up over at Heart of Charnwood who's doing a monthly Craft Book Challenge too.  If you want to join in too, and be in the running for the prize, simply complete a project from a craft book and link up, see the post here for all the details.

You can just see a strip of the fabric at the top, and that is probably the truest colour.  I used a selection of different shades of red seed beads, sizes 10 and 11, some white pearls, clear AB crystals and some lovely opaque drops I bought a while ago by mistake and had no idea how to use. The whole fringe was beading using nymo thread and a beading needle.

It took me HOURS.  Really, I didn't think it would take that long, but it did.  One issue I had with the pattern was that no photos were shown of the side of the fringe, so when I got to the bottom bead vertically (the fourth bead at that time), I really couldn't see where to go.  I did figure it out but not until I'd added 2 extra rows and done half the fringe.  It's staying as it is!

Well ladies, I finished the scarf last week and work something red the very next day so I could wear it to work.  Around lunchtime I noticed a long thread hanging off one of the fringes, an entire row had dropped out!  I had a quick scout round the office and there are tiny red beads everywhere!  It's now sitting waiting for me to fix it.  I'll rethread the row that dropped out, then I'm going to put dobs of beading glue on each join, I don't want the whole thing falling off!!

noooooooooooooooooo! Can you help??

Ladies, I am a fool.

I went to a dress making course yesterday (I'll tell you all about it later, but I won't be able to get photos til next weekend) and came home bursting with creativity.  I decided to tackle February's block for the And Sew On BOM.  It looked really hard but I was full of confidence.

You know what?  It went really well.  Yes, I sewed quite a few of the pieces on the wrong way and had to unpick.  Yes, my pieces didn't always cover the area and had to be unpicked.  Yes, the whole pattern is covered in washi tape where unpicking ripped the paper.  But I did it.  I was SO proud.

All that remained to be done was sew the two halves together.  I did.  They didn't line up properly.  I decided it was safe to just rip the seam open as it didn't matter if the paper perforated.

Big mistake.

Huge.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!  My question to you ladies, is can I fix this without unpicking the whole lot or starting again?  If so - HOW? 

progress

Morning ladies.  No finishes today, just a little bit of progress on an old project and a new one. First up is the dancers cross stitch.  I went into my photo albums to find the last update I did, I couldn't find a picture anywhere!  This means you, nor I, can really see if there IS any progress, but at least I'll have a record for next time!

I had stitched quite a bit of area around the hands and the ladies head.  When I came back to this project a few weeks ago, I discovered that a lot of the background was wrong!  So frustrating.  Out it came.  There is some more that is possibly wrong, but I've left it for the minute.  I thought that stitching the uninteresting bit first - the background - would help me move this along quicker.  Yeah, that didn't work!

Since the last update, I've done all the bright blue you can see and the lady's upheld arm.  This is WIP #9.

I've also started something new.  WIP #24 is a punch needle kit I bought at a craft fair sometime last year.  This craft was new to me, something I'd never seen before and I thought it looked easy, in principle it is, in reality it so isn't!

The blue thing has a slotted needle in it, the thread goes down the shaft and out of the needle and then is threaded through a hole in the needle.  You can set the tool to produce different sizes of loops, most of this is done in 1 and 2, the smallest loops you can get. 

You work from the back, in and out of the fabric, close together and this is what it produces on the front!  I love the effect.  This is by no means perfect, or even well done, but it's clearly a craft that needs practice and who says everything I produce has to be perfect?  Hopefully noone or I've let them down repeatedly!  I've got a long way to go, so there's a lot of time to perfect my loops!

Not number 125

As I was finishing up this mosaic, which is from a kit, Mr CA came over and told me in a worried voice that I'd done it all wrong.  My heart plummeted.  He pointed to the box of the kit and said "you've put number 4"

Ha ha ha Mr CA. 

WIP #26 is officially finished. It was not without it's issues.  I loved laying the tiles, the 4 took ages to get right, but the rest of it went pretty quickly.  I just did small sections at a time to give the glue time to set so I didn't then move everything I'd done.

Then came the time to apply the grout.  I could NOT get it to mix to a paste.  It was watery and thin so in the end I donned some rubber gloves, poured it on and spread it around with my hands.  This (above) is the result.

 

I should have nipped to Hobbycraft (10 mins drive from my house, if that) to buy some more.  I didn't.  I stole some from my tray mosaic kit.  It's not white.  This is how it turned out (above), so I had to spend some time rubbing quite hard with a damp cloth to get the lumps off!

 

 

And here's the finished number plate.  Not too bad.  It would look better with white grout, but considering this will be on the wall outside the house, I don't think it will even be obvious in a couple of weeks time. 

The conclusion?  I LOVED this.  I'm going to do the tray kit next, then I think I'll be ready to move on to my own design and working with some other materials.

giveaway win

Yes that's right, I won another giveaway.  I say "another" as I went through a very lucky period of winning loads, but this is the first in a while!  Very much appreciated too.  I hopped along with the In Your Words blog hop, I love a good blog hop, great way of finding inspiration and finding new-to-me blogs to read.

I won the prize from Amy's Crafty Shenanigans and look what the generous lady sent me!

How fab is that London fabric?  It goes so nicely with the red fabric too and I just love red.  Now I have to decide what it's going to be.

I did a little tiny bit of online shopping too.  Alyce from Blossom Heart Quilts is running a monthly stash club where you can buy 6 fat 1/8th or 6 FQs of Japanese fabric on a certain theme.  January's theme was text fabric and I really wanted some text fabric so I signed up.  It's all done on a month by month basis, if you're interested, you're too late for February, but you can buy March's pack- go to her Etsy shop.

This is what I received.  The two on the top right are written in French which is perfect for me, and I love the newsprint one.  Unfortunately, I got stung with a customs charge of £12 which brought the total price for EACH fat quarter to £5.50, definitely not a bargain!  I'm afraid I won't be joining in again which I'm a bit sad about as I'd planned this to be a monthly treat. 

glass update

Good morning!  It's time for another glass update, I really feel like I'm making progress this term so I plan to show you my progress each week.  First of all, let's see where I got to last week:

Again, I have to apologise for the photos.  I'm working on the paper which is on top of the ply wood, so I can't change the background.  I also can't really move it around to get better light as it's pretty heavy and very big!  I was asked last week how big it is so I've measured it for you, it's about 800 x 450mm (31" x 19").

I managed to get the rose in this week, along with the stem, a leaf and another nugget.  I don't know if you remember, but I made the rose, stem and leaves right at the beginning of the project back in June last year.  They're fused, so only the edges need leading.  It was a bit of a struggle getting the rose in place!

It's all starting to come together!

I have high hopes of getting the rest of this section done tomorrow, then I can fit in the fused glass square and add the straight bits.  After that it's back to putting the nuggets in the border (much quicker now I can use the bandsaw!) and I'm pretty much there for the leading.